_Answ._ When the Spirit is said to make intercession for us, this is not to be understood of his appearing in the presence of God, and so offering prayers, or supplications to him in our behalf; but it only intends his enabling us to pray for ourselves, which is an effect of his power, working this grace in us; therefore the apostle, speaking concerning the same thing, says, elsewhere, _God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father_, Gal. iv. 6. that is, enabling us to cry, _Abba, Father_: Such an intercession as this, is not unbecoming a divine Person; and this is what is plainly the sense of those scriptures, in which the Spirit is said to intercede for us. As for Christ’s intercession, it consists, indeed, in his praying for us,[135] rather than enabling us to pray; therefore it was requisite that he should be Man, in order thereunto. _Object. 2._ It is generally supposed, that Christ made intercession for his people before his incarnation: Thus we cannot but conclude, that he is intended by _the angel of the Lord_, who is represented as pleading for Israel; _O Lord of hosts, how long wilt thou not have mercy on Jerusalem, and upon the cities of Judah, against which thou hast had indignation these three-score and ten years?_ Zech. i. 12. and also as pleading in their behalf against the accusations of Satan, _The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord, which hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee: Is not this a brand which is plucked out of the fire?_ chap. iii. 2. If therefore he made intercession at that time, when he had no human nature, his incarnation was not necessary thereunto. _Answ._ Though we allow that Christ is often represented, in the Old Testament, as interceding for his people; yet these expressions are either proleptical, and do not denote, so much, what Christ then did, as what he would do, after he had assumed our nature; or they imply, that the salvation of the church, under that dispensation, was owing to the intercession that Christ would make after his incarnation, as well as to that satisfaction which he would give to the justice of God in our nature; so that Christ, in those scriptures, is represented as procuring those blessings for his people, by what he would, in reality, do after his incarnation, the virtue whereof is supposed to be extended to them at that time: He did not therefore _formally_, but _virtually_, intercede for them; and consequently it does not prove that his incarnation was not necessary for his making that intercession, which he ever lives to do in the behalf of his church.